Miami-based host agency LuxRally Travel has added some 1.3 million hotels to its booking engine, FastBook.
The hotel inventory comes from a variety of sources that provide net rates, including HotelBeds, RateHawk, Restel, Expedia Partner Solutions and Rakuten Travel Xchange. Previously, FastBook only displayed hotels in the Sabre GDS.
The expanded supply gives LuxRally advisors more pricing options, enabling them to compete against OTAs on price, said CEO David Eisen. It also enables advisors to see all those options on a mobile device.
Travel advisors can adjust their mark-up on net rates with a simple slider tool. Eisen said the total price of a hotel and commission can never exceed the best available rate, because LuxRally does not allow its advisors to charge fees.
Eisen plans to add more hotel sources to FastBook, ensuring more rates are available to advisors in a single place.
He called FastBook "a system that's for a power-user agent who wants to find the best rate as quickly as possible while they're quoting."
"This isn't a system that's designed to go read reviews," he said. "It's not a system that's designed to look at pretty pictures."
Eisen came to the travel industry after a career in cybersecurity for defense contractors. After working as a travel advisor, he created FastBook.
"I built it around exactly what I would want from a system," he said.
Fastbook isn't stopping with hotels. Eisen plans to add air, cruise, tours, transfers and car rentals.
Since its launch in 2022, LuxRally has only been open to new travel advisors. But in a month or two, Eisen said, the agency will open a hosting program for experienced advisors.